


Neither Out Far Nor In Deep

by Arwyn



Category: due South
Genre: (briefly) - Freeform, Bisexual Character, Character Study, Homophobic Language, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Fraser, Other, Queer Themes, Relationship Study, Slurs, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:45:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5319206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arwyn/pseuds/Arwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>The thing is, Fraser really just Does Not Get Gender. Or rather, he thinks </em>it’s a very interesting concept that is highly important culturally (and he’s very aware of different cultures’ concepts of and relationships with gender)<em> --  that has basically nothing to do with him. Except for how other people constantly think it does.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Neither Out Far Nor In Deep

**Author's Note:**

> lark-in-ink on tumblr asked me to talk more about nonbinary!Fraser. What resulted wasn't exactly a fic, but it's not exactly not a fic either, so I cleaned it up a bit and attempted to poke the tenses into shape and saved it here. For posterity. Or something.
> 
> Title taken from a poem by Robert Frost, of the same title.

It’s not until after -- really, way too damn long after -- they’re together-together, partner-partners, that Ray starts to understand Fraser and gender. Eventually the words they (like he had anything to do with it -- really it was Fraser all the way) settle on as more-or-less good-enough are “masculine-ish” and (this was a new one for Ray -- though for Fraser, too, he gathered) “agender”. Thing is, Fraser really just Does Not Get Gender. Or rather, he thinks _it’s a very interesting concept that is highly important culturally (and he’s very aware of different cultures’ concepts of and relationships with gender)_  --  that has basically nothing to do with him. Except for how other people constantly think it does.

(Which, Ray decides, is part of why Fraser latches on to chivalry code: it tells him how he’s supposed to act in order to perform his _assigned masculinity_  in a way that both fits with that mask of his – The Mountie – and amuses the hell out of his inner troll, while being just “off” and performative enough that it feels okay to him. Ray knows it’s not accurate, exactly, as far as gender goes, but it seems to do him okay enough, for outside their home.)

So then there’s Ray, who has always been bi, and always known he’s bi, but more or less keeps it on the down low (hah), and he’s never been in a relationship with a guy before; Mikey from behind the gym and the guys at the bars don’t count. So he’s trying to figure out how he’s supposed to be with _a guy_ , when he is also trying to be a guy, and neither of them are about to start swishing, he’s pretty sure, but all his relationship knowledge is about how to Be the Man Who Gets the Girl (even if he did lose her in the end, and he alternates between hating himself for trying too hard to be the guy she wanted and hating himself for not trying hard enough, and, after he meets Fraser, hating himself for not being able to let go of the dream of her easily enough).

So when he’s in the middle of trying to figure out what it means to be with a man, like _this_ , and Fraser interrupts him, very Canadianly, to say _well, no…_ , it’s… well, okay, it’s weird, but it’s a relief, in ways he doesn’t even recognize for a while.

And yeah, okay, there was that brief freak out when he thought he was gonna have to deal with Fraser as a woman sometimes, but Fraser very patiently (looking back, Ray realizes how freaked out Fraser was then too, how vulnerable he was letting himself be, and Ray falls a little more in love every time he thinks about it) explains the difference between straight men who are crossdressers, trans women, and bi-gender people, none of which are him, and while he certainly doesn’t object to wearing, for instance, a wig and a nice pantsuit (as long as there are no pantyhose in sight), and that it doesn’t feel any more particularly “wrong” for him in the way he (abstractly, of course) understands it to be the case for most American (or Canadian) men, he also doesn’t see much _purpose_ to it outside of, again only for example, a case.

But eventually Ray figures it out – this is just Fraser, and he’s a freak, and unique, and Ray’s always known that – and he gets it, and it makes so much sense, and he doesn’t have to do anything or be anyone to be with Fraser, he can just be himself, and Fraser doesn’t want anything in particular from him, except for him to accept Fraser as he is, and Ray can do that. Ray can knock that ball right out of the park, again and again, and the look of adoration on Fraser’s face (when they’re not at each other’s throats – or, heh, going for each other’s tails) tells him that every time.

In the end, Ray gets so damn protective of Fraser, and so aware of the ways that the world tries to shove him into this hypermasculine box, and Fraser will just put up with it: over and over again he’ll allow or politely squirm away from the way women try to use him, the way men try to size him up, the way his superiors expect him to endure, to deal, to, to, man up, dammit, and yeah okay, Fraser will do pretty much anything for the job, for justice with a capital Just, but he does it because that’s who he is, who he chooses to be, and doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do with what’s between his legs or who he fucks or that place in his head that’s just sorta blank where most people’s (okay, where Ray’s) shouts MAN or WOMAN or whatever the hell else. That just isn’t Fraser, and yeah, most of the time it’s pretty cool that Ray’s the only one who really gets to see Fraser _and_ the Mountie _and_ Ben _and_ Benton _and_ the wild haired sweat-soaked person begging for Ray to go _harder_ and _faster_ and _keep going, Ray, God, more_ , but sometimes it pisses him the hell off how no one else seems to see beyond the hat and the handsome face at _all_.

Ray spends a lot of his time, after they move to Canada, fending off the women and the jokes and the cracks about faggots and the _“his father’s son”_ s and the _“nice young man”_ s and he never outs Fraser but he’s gotten damn good at getting his point across anyway. And yeah he doesn’t get to do much police work these days, but he still gets to get in people’s faces and growl them off and his beat may be down to a population of one, but then again, keeping up with Fraser is pretty much a full time job, and it’s definitely enough for him.

 

 


End file.
